


to defend the innocent

by dollsome



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: Brienne goes after Jaime. An alternate ending to 8x04.





	to defend the innocent

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt "Jaime/Brienne + 'I need you to come get me'" from angearia over on Tumblr. I originally had a silly modern AU planned, but then when I sat down to write, it was like, "NOPE, STILL SUPER BITTER ABOUT THE LAST FEW EPISODES OF SEASON 8!"
> 
> So here we are, in angst land again. The actual words "I need you to come get me" do not appear, but I like to think the essence is in here somewhere.

_In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave._  
_ In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just._  
_ In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent._  
_ Arise, Brienne of Tarth, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms._

Long after Jaime has disappeared into the darkness, Brienne stands in the cold, empty courtyard. It’s hell in a way it wasn’t even when they were battling the dead. At least then, she was in her element, ready to go down fighting. Now she stands helpless, playing a role she surely wasn’t meant for: the weeping woman left behind. The stuff of pretty, aching songs.

When she’s started shaking hard enough that she notices it in her haze of grief, she steers herself numbly back inside.

She considers the bed that she’d begun to think of as theirs.

If she’d known he would give up so easily, she wouldn’t have fought so hard for him in the first place.

The hurt is so sharp right now that she almost believes it.

For a desperate moment, she searches the room, checking corners for a note, some explanation for abandoning her for good in the middle of the night.

Nothing.

It’s like him. He’s forever following his heart where it leads without stopping to think what might happen.

Like when he jumped into a bear pit, one hand and no plan, to save her.

Brienne closes her eyes. Remembers the way her heart sang at the sight of him and hope bloomed, painful and true, in her chest. Then she swears under her breath and begins to gather her clothes. A knight might weep, but not for long.

+

She finds him in an inn less than a day’s ride later, sitting at a table in the corner alone. He’s covered in a dark cloak, but she recognizes him at once from across the room. The set of his shoulders is familiar enough to her that she doesn’t even need to note the telltale stiffness of his right hand under his glove.

She crosses the inn slowly, readying herself the way she would for a fight. They’re close enough to Winterfell that the people here recognize her as Lady Sansa’s guardian and eye her with respect. She still hasn’t grown used to that. Under different circumstances, she could appreciate it.

Not just now.

Finally, she reaches the table and takes the seat opposite him. The momentary hush that had followed her as she crossed the room fades away, replaced by everyday chatter. She’s glad it isn’t silent. She doesn’t think she could bear it.

Jaime looks up and his face goes blank. His round eyes make her feel, suddenly, that she knows just what he looked like as a boy. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t let you go alone.” The words come out just as strong as they’d pulsed through her head during hours of traveling. “You stood by my side in the fight against the dead. Now I’m returning the favor.”

Jaime stares at her in dismay. She would laugh if it didn’t make her sick to put that look on his face.

“Have you forgotten how to talk?” Brienne asks sharply.

“By _my_ side?” he manages at last. “You mean against the side you’ve sworn to serve?”

“I’m sure I’ll find a way to make it work.”

His countenance turns from dismayed to hard. Furious. “Go back to Winterfell.”

“No.”

“I mean it, Brienne.”

“I won’t.”

“I’ll fight you.” 

“Good. I would quite like a crack at that face at the moment.”

He almost laughs, a helpless sound like giving up against a current and sinking. Underneath the anger, she softens.

“Why would you do this?” Quieter, voice almost swallowed up by the merry conversations of the people around them, she adds, “Why would you do this to me?”

“If you knew—” His voice trembles. It digs into her heart. “—if you knew what it cost me to go, you wouldn’t have been cruel enough to follow me here.”

Brienne glances at his hand resting on the table. It would be easy to take it. She stays still. “I’m not going to let you die with her.”

“Who said anything about dying?” he answers a second too late. “I was going to get her out.”

Brienne doesn’t say anything. He stares back at her, and a little shift in his eyes tells her that he knows the game is up.

“Shouldn’t I?” he says quietly. A sad smile flits across his face. “After all I’ve—”

“No.” Her stomach lurches.

“I couldn’t very well stay there. You saw how Sansa spoke to me about Cersei. And Bran Stark is—well, I don’t know what he is, but whatever he’s become, it’s because of me. They were a happy family once. Do you really think they’d be able to endure having a Lannister live blissfully under their roof? I won’t insult them like that. They’ve suffered enough.”

Brienne has thought the same thing, though she had cherished his unlikely presence too much to address it. Her answer is ready. “We could have gone somewhere else.”

“You’d never leave Sansa.”

“I _have_ left Sansa.”

Jaime stares at her, seeming struck again by the reality of her presence. He reaches out and touches her hand for a fleeting second. Long enough, perhaps, to convince himself that it’s the same flesh he’s touched before.

Then he mutters, “Must you always be so damned stubborn?”

“Only when someone is being an idiot.”

“I won’t let you come with me.”

“I won’t let you leave.”

They lose the will to keep going at the same moment. They turn quiet and listen to the sounds of the inn. The rise and fall of voices. The crackle of the fire.

Maybe they’ll stay here forever, locked in an unwinnable fight.

There are worse fates.

“When we met,” Jaime says at last, “I was full of schemes about how to escape you.”

“Not very good ones, apparently,” Brienne says.

“No,” Jaime agrees, looking at her in a way she can’t begin to decipher, “not very good ones.”

Something in the substance of his gaze makes her sure. Even if she never sees him again, it will be worth it to know he’s still alive. He won’t let Cersei plague Westeros or try to usurp Queen Daenerys’s rule. Maybe Cersei will come to her senses, finally, and realize how lucky she is to be the owner of a devotion so true. Who could care for power with a thing like that?

Honor isn’t as simple a thing as Brienne once thought. She may lose hers in the eyes of the world for this deed, but her heart is sure. There is honor in paying the debt she owes him. In saving him like he’s saved her.

“I’ll help you get her out,” she says. “The two of you can leave Westeros. As long as you never show your faces here again, you might stand a chance—”

“The two of us?” Jaime interrupts.

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

Jaime is silent for a long time, his brow furrowed. “Sansa would never forgive you if she knew of your involvement.”

“I trust you’ll see to it,” Brienne answers, “that Cersei is never a threat to Westeros again.”

“Yes,” Jaime says quietly.

Her heart sinks at the thought of Sansa’s face frosting over in distrust and pain. “Then it’s a price I will pay. For you.”

Jaime bows his head like a man in prayer. When he looks up at her again, she finds she can’t endure his gaze, and looks away.

The innkeeper senses the lull in conversation and brings her beer, stew, and bread. She thanks him curtly for it and tries to conjure up the hunger she should feel after a day’s riding.

It isn’t until the stew bowl is half-empty that Jaime says, “Why?”

She thinks of playing the fool, saying something about food, but decides against it. She knows just what he’s talking about. It’s time, she decides, for them to get in the habit of saying what they mean to each other. “I’m a knight. I swore a vow to defend.”

“To defend the innocent.” The last word glints bitterly in his mouth.

She pushes the bread across the table to him. “Perhaps that means those who need it the most.”

+

They sleep in the same room, Jaime ceding the bed to Brienne, and dress and eat in silence the next morning. When they step out into the light snow, he looks at her like he might speak but doesn’t. She focuses instead on readying the horses.

It’s only once they’re both on horseback and contemplating the stretch of road before them that the silence is broken.

“We’ll get her out,” Jaime says.

Brienne nods, and does not let herself think of how he must hunger to reach Cersei.

“And then,” he continues, “we’ll face what comes.”

Before she can reply, he spurs his horse onto the road. She watches for a moment, stunned into stillness. Then she urges her own steed to follow after. As she moves forward, closing the distance between them, the snowflakes kiss her hair and face, sweet little stings like hope.


End file.
